SLMC Leader and City Planning, Water Supply and Higher Education Minister Rauff Hakeem on Wednesday (23) refuted allegations leveled against him, linking him to Easter Sunday attacks mastermind Zahran Hashim, adding that it was part of a conspiracy engineered by the Opposition to damage his image and influence the upcoming Presidential election to gain power at any cost.
Addressing a media briefing at the Parliamentary complex, Minister Hakeem said that the photographs and a video being circulated, showing him in the company of Zahran, were taken in the aftermath of the 2015 Parliamentary Elections and were now being shown to damage the Presidential Election campaign of DNF Candidate Sajith Premadasa.
He said MP Dinesh Gunawardena in Parliament on Wednesday raised an issue on the credibility of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) which probed the Easter Sunday attacks. “Commenting on certain photographs and videos of him in the social media, MP Gunawardena attempted to give the impression to the country that I am a person who had dealings with terrorist groups,” he said, “Therefore, MP Gunawardena said my participation into the PSC proceedings has damaged the credibility of the PSC report.”
“Being a member of the PSC appointed to probe Easter Sunday attacks, even the media could witness, I acted in a very impartial manner and never attempted to influence any witness. The views that I expressed at the PSC proceedings never caused any damage to the country, nation or the dignity of Parliament. When the PSC report was prepared I didn’t attempt to hide any facts or change its content according to my whims. The PSC Chairman and my fellow committee members would bear testimony to it. That is why even the PSC Chairman refutes the baseless allegations leveled against me,” he said.
Minister Hakeem said “as I see these matters have been exposed via media with an ulterior motive to gain narrow political advantage at the upcoming Presidential Election.
This is a deliberate attempt to create tensions among the people and brand me as the leader of a reputed political party who had links with a terrorist group. By doing so, the Opposition attempts to expand their vote base.”
He said a moulavi named Ibrahim Miflal first leveled these allegations against him and lodged a complaint with the Police. He had contested as a Presidential Candidate during the 2015 Presidential Election and engaged in an attempt to divert the votes of the Muslims to another direction. “He contested the Presidential Election to sabotage the election campaign of President Maithripala Sirisena and bring the advantage to the rival group,” he said, “Now he is working to bring Gotabaya Rajapaksa to power.”
“Miflal is an accomplished liar and an agent of the SLPP,” Hakeem said, “He has been used by interested parties to undermine Muslim unity in the past and that seems to be his chosen vocation. I have enough irrefutable evidence to prove his intimate links to senior Leaders of the SLPP.”
He explained that the Joint Opposition, who refused to participate in the PSC, now want to subvert the process of discovering the truth of the Easter Sunday carnage.
“The so-called alleged encounter with the terrorist was very much in the knowledge of these mud slingers when the composition of the PSC was announced,” he said, “On the eve of the submission of the report, the jackals have settled for howling.”
According to Hakeem, this is because there is no other avenue available to them to come to terms with the truth. “It is a shame that people are now trying to reduce a painstakingly conducted exercise in to a political circus.”